It's Christmas Time!

Tyler has been SO much fun this year with all the Christmas stuff. He gets excited about everything. When he sees Christmas decorations in the store, he'll say, "Look Mommy, Christmas time!" He has the Christmas story completely memorized. He has a little book that tells the story with pictures and he calls it his "baby Jesus Bible." He can tell you the story word for word. It is amazing. I'm going to have to get it on video. One day Todd read the story directly from Luke, and Tyler was still able to fill in all the words, even without picture clues. I love that he knows so well what Christmas is really about.

Every morning when he wakes up, Tyler pulls all of his gifts out from under the tree and lines them up in a row. He admires each one before moving on to the next. Then, in the sweetest little voice he says, "Thank you, Mommy, for wrapping these for me." Todd always laughs when he comes home and Tyler's presents are all lined up again. Yesterday he sat next to them and told me to take his picture. I think he'll miss having the wrapped gifts to admire once he opens them.

Then there's the Christmas cookies. When I was growing up, my mom would do Christmas cookies with me every year since I was 2 years old. I remember having so much fun decorating each one, and I always looked forward to it. So, I decided this was something I'd have to do with my kids each year too. I figured Tyler would get tired after a few cookies, and I would be left decorating them all myself. But, he had patience beyond his years. He sat at that table and helped with every last cookie. He put so much thought into each little piece of candy, placing it in just the right spot. Daddy even joined in the fun when he got home from work. It was such a fun time!

I put the icing on the gingerbread men and he did all the rest!

He watched them closely while they were in the oven. Every few minutes he would report that none have run away. They were still in there.

Oh, and this is our tree right after we put it up. Tyler told me I needed to take a picture of it. He's very into taking pictures lately.

One last story...

I had a few baskets of unfolded clean laundry in my room (don't judge, you know you have them too). Tyler decided it would be really neat to dump them out and "go swimming in the clothes." When he was finished "swimming," he pushed them all together and made a mountain for reading. Here he is reading on his laundry mountain. He keeps me smiling!